XDA News Articles

The great thing about our smartphones is the ability to put on your head phones and listen to music or podcasts while on the bus, on the train, waiting at the DMV or just eating lunch when you are trying to block out the outside world. In order to listen to podcasts seamlessly, you will want the best application you can get your hands on. The talented developers over at “Shifty Jelly” offer up a must have podcast application. In...

Here at XDA, we focus on highlighting the most promising projects that can instantly become hits. Not so long ago, we showed you Corgi for feedly, which brings the latest technology news to your lock screen. We reached out to one of the developers, Stanislav Dmitriev, who uses XDA as Stan.Dmitriev, to answer us a few questions regarding Corgi and other non-development things. Here's what Stan had to say. Hi, Stan! You’re one of the developers of Corgi for feedly. Could you...

With the wonderful capabilities of our smartphones, we have access to piles of information, helpful tricks and millions of cat videos. Smartphones have brought friends and family closer. Find something funny, adorable, or twisted that your friends will like? Copy that link and share it on social media. However, if you want to share multiple links, it can be a tedious process. The developer little_cup offers up an app that allows you to control your clipboard and easily store multiple...

Android 5.x Lollipop has provided many visual updates, including the lockscreen. Unfortunately, some carriers and manufacturers are not offering Lollipop for some recent devices. On the flip side, some Lollipop users still prefer the old style of lockscreen. XDA Senior Member thotran7989 offers up an app that allows you to customize everything about your lockscreen. In this video, XDA TV Producer TK reviews Hi Locker. TK shows off the application, its uses, functionality and talks about his thoughts of the application....

Business gets accomplished on the mobile device now. Whether that is through calls, emails, or text messages, somewhere somebody is doing business. It could be that guy rushing through the crowd in a power suit with a Bluetooth in his ear. What happens when he is on the run and needs to make a note about the call or caller? XDA Forum Member Ironsteel offers up an app that allows you to add notes to your callers and manage your...

How many times have you looked at your phone to check the battery level? How many times have you gotten the low battery alert in the middle of the afternoon? Many people deal with this by having an array of power cords and power banks. But what amount of charge is your battery getting? Is it sufficient to overcome your phones draw? XDA Senior Member nihil0 offers up an app that allows you to see how much current is charging or...

There are a lot of video players on the market, and to be completely honest, the default Android video player on our phones are often sufficient. However, sometimes you need to be able to play more formats that the default player doesn’t support. On a separate instance, maybe you need to record your screen, and instead of installing two apps, you can just install one. XDA Forum Member VideoExpertsGroup offers up an app that allows you to play many formats...

A huge majority of us use our smartphone devices to play games. Whether it’s Plants v. Zombies on the bus or Asphalt 8: AirBorne at home, our devices help us pass the time in a fun way. Some of the best games can be deceptively simple and completely addictive, like Flappy Bird. XDA Forum Member thypham offers up a game that is deceptively simple, yet completely difficult. In this episode of Game Time, XDA TV Producer rirozizo reviews Phobo Juggling. Rirozizo...

Our phones are jam packed with features. You can crush candy, you can send emails, you can take photos, you can make phone calls and you can surf the internet. However, sometimes that’s just too much. Sometimes we need to take a break from our device, but it is not always and easy as it seems. The team of developers at ZeroDesktop Inc. offer up an app that gives you some quality time away from the distractions on your phone....

Here at XDA we spend a lot of time in our recoveries. Some of our tweaks, hacks, and mods require you to make changes to system files. That requires some pretty deep access. You can get to that access from recovery, like TWRP. However, the recovery file manager doesn’t feel like the Android file managers. XDA Recognized Developer amarullz offers up an app that lets you have a fully functional file manager in your recovery. In this video XDA TV...

How many times have you tried to upload something to your Google Drive or Dropbox, only to find you have no more space? With all these different services and files the sky is often clouded with cloud storage. It may be helpful to understand which files are using a big portion of your storage and how much storage you have left. XDA Senior Member cgollner offers up an app that allows you to clear the skies in your cloudy data...

Just last week, we talked about the Must Have App for backups known as Helium. In the comments there was a lot of discussion about which app was actually better: Helium or, the gold standard, Titanium Backup? Is it dependent on whether you have root on your device or not? Is it brute force versus finesse? In this episode, XDA TV Producer TK compares Helium to Titanium in a Backup App Showdown. In this cage match two will enter, how many will...

There are a lot of custom ROMs or OEM bloaty skins that allow you to run two (or more) applications on the screen at the same time. But what if you are using AOSP or stock Android on a Nexus device, or your device doesn’t support mutliapps? XDA Senior Member wutk3ksHD offers up an app that allows you to run multiple apps at the same time. In this video XDA TV Producer TK reviews Tiny Apps and shows off its uses, functionality and talks...

Our smartphones have advanced tremendously over the last few years, and so have our uses for them. Everything from pictures and videos to emails and notes get stored on our devices. But don't you wish there was an easier way to back it all up? The creators of Helium offer an app that promises to quickly and easily backup your Android device. In this video, XDA TV Producer TK reviews the app, and gives us a run down on how it...

We get a lot of incoming information on our devices every day. To help remind us to check things like email and messaging systems, Android gives us notifications. There are many times when you don’t want it to make a sound. Sometimes, even that horrible vibrating phone on a wooden table noise is too loud. Thus, we have to rely on our visual indicators The creators of Light Flow offer up an app that lets you view and control your...

Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and other communicators are not intended to be used as foreground applications due to their occasional use. Instead they are usually used as background apps and opened only when needed. These communicators are very popular but are still far behind SMS, which is in use by almost every phone in the world. Facebook was one of the first applications that made use of floating windows. Floating technology has become quite popular and even found its way to Sony's...

Battery life on our Android devices is something that we're always looking for ways to improve. Google has been working to minimize the battery consumption in Android but there is still a lot left to be desired. Every little way of giving a device a couple extra hours of battery life can come in handy. Wi-Fi connectivity, for example, is usually enabled all the time, even when the device is not in the network range. XDA Forum Member Xenon O came...

Application locking apps have been available for quite a long time. The majority of them usually require a PIN code password or pattern to be entered to unlock an app. While these options may give you some decent protection, you may want to consider spicing things up with a new method using your device's volume rockers. XDA Forum Member fazuvpk decided to take a unique approach and created the Oops! AppLock. This application allows you to unlock the locked app in a...

The vast majority of custom kernels allow various modifications like selecting your governor, adjusting the maximum clock frequency, and much more. These paramters can be changed by executing commands through ADB or by using one of the kernel control applications created by various kernel developers here on XDA. Applications that let you change kernel settings are often limited to a few basic options or are paid-only. If you are looking for a free app with nice design and a long...

If you're anything like the rest of the XDA community, you are an enthusiast who customizes your phone and uses all sorts of different features. However, that seems to mean to family members and less technical friends that you are their personal technical support network. You may want to know how to easily help them “just make some stinking calls.” XDA Forum Member tomasslavicek offers up a launcher replacement that simplifies the smartphone interface. In this video, XDA TV Producer TK...

XDA Developers was founded by developers, for developers. It is now a valuable resource for people who want to make the most of their mobile devices, from customizing the look and feel to adding new functionality. Are you a developer?